This & That & Meat Loaf Too

Okay I know I haven't been too prolific so far this year with my blog writing. It seems that I have been spending lots of time driving here, driving there and then driving somewhere else. Once I finish writing this blog I will be off driving once again. Back to Mauldin. Then later off to Costco on Woodruff Rd., then back to Simpsonville and so it goes.

With this blog I believe I will match the Habs win total for 2012. I will have to up my blog writing to match their loss total so far this year. These guys should be working for Canada Post or the USPS because they are mailing it since the beginning of the year. It's gotten to the point that I don't even bother checking their scores any more until the next day. That's a reflection of their play. They are playing half-assed, I will follow them half-assed. LOL.

Came back home early this morning to drive H to work and then came back to clean the kitchen a bit. I've got some cooking to do this afternoon. I finally shaved my face this morning. I hadn't in over ten days. It gets really noticeable when I have more on my chin than on the top of my head. Plus the fact that it seems like every colour of the rainbow appears in my beard after about a week. LOL.

I have a mixed CD going right now as I type this. Meat Loaf inspired me to sit down a spell and write this blog. After my shower, the opening bit with the roar of a motorcycle and the piano intro of "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I won't Do That)" came on after a Lisa-Marie Presley track as well as a Mary K. Blige track. Pretty eclectic mix I might add.

The release of the Meat Loaf song back in 1993 was a return to form for the epic type rock songs written by his long-time collaborator Jim Steinman. This song would have fit in perfectly on 1977's "Bat Out Of Hell". Radio and music company people back in '93 wanted them to cut the song down from the original 12 minute version to something more palateable like 5 minutes. Even back then they thought music lovers had the attention span of an amoeba. I don't think I have heard the short versions. I'm pretty sure I have seen the 7 and 1/2 minute video version.

I really wish people would give us more credit. Not everything needs to diluted to the length of a sound bite. This includes songs, news stories, political debates and our thought processes. We're better than that. I hope! LOL.

Back to the song now. Smile. I never knew that the original female voice on the track was a complete unknown at the time. It is a lady from northeast England named Lorraine Crosby who shows up 9 and 1/2 minutes into the song. The lady in the video was Dana Patrick and she only lip-synched her lines. In many live versions of the track you see long-time Meat Loaf touring singer Patti Russo do the female bit. She sure has the voice for it.

Oh man I just noticed the time. I have to get going. I'll type more later.

It's An Effing Game!!!

Well here I am at 518am and I am already peeved and I haven't had my first cup of coffee yet. It's brewing right now. I made the mistake of reading Philippe Cantin's article on the Cyberpresse website in regards to the Habs hiring the unilingual Randy Cunneyworth as their head coach yesterday morning to replace Jacques Martin.

Let's back up here for a second first and go through some recent history. The Canadiens haven't won the Stanley Cup since the 1992-93 season. They've had a couple of good runs in the playoffs with 2009-10's almost miracle run the latest. That year we made it the conference final basically on Jaroslav Halak's back. When he was on his game, the Habs won. When he stunk up the joint, he was pulled but quick.

Since the 92-93 Cup winners, our general managers have been named Serge Savard, Rejean Houle, Andre Savard, Bob Gainey and Pierre Gauthier.

Since the 92-93 season's end, our head coaches have been Jacques Demers, Mario Tremblay, Alain Vigneault, Michel Therrien, Claude Julien, Bob Gainey (on a temporary basis twice to replace coaches he had fired), Guy Carbonneau and Jacques Martin.

So in close to twenty years aside from Bob Gainey, our general managers and head coaches all had in common the fact that their mother tongue was French.

Bob Gainey was deservedly named GM of the Habs after spending 16 years playing for them and earning his coach and GM stripes with the Dallas Stars.

The Habs have always been an organization that bring up their storied history in their promotional efforts. Habs' fans readily and eagerly buy into that fact and they have had sellout after sellout at the old Forum and at the Bell Centre.

When things are going well and the team itself is playing a fast-paced offensive crowd-pleasing style, the Bell Centre literally feels like it is shaking in its' foundation.

This is a throwback to the glory days when the Habs had the first dibs on all French Canadian players due to territorial rights. Even when they didn't as the NHL expanded, the Hab GMs were able to make the deals to get the best of the best of the French Canadian players. Case in point were the deals that were engineered by Sam Pollock to get Guy Lafleur.

Except for maybe the jobs with the Toronto Maple Leafs as we know that they are the center of the Canadian universe, being the GM or head coach of the Habs are the toughest jobs in hockey. Making it even tougher is the language bullshit. That is the correct word to use here.

The language issue is always there in the background. It happened a couple of years ago when the talented and uber-courageous Saku Koivu had his team captain credentials questioned by some sycophants in the French press.

It seems to come up every year come the annual draft when the Habs sometimes have to make picks based on the French-Canadianism of the player rather than the talent.

It comes up when the Habs make trades or don't make trades and whether or not the player being traded or obtained is French-Canadian or not.

Being the head coach of the Habs is a tough job. The fans expect winners even though present and previous management continues to make some questionable decisions on personnel.

Decisions like letting quarterbacks of the power plays signing elsewhere. Players like Sheldon Souray, Mark Streit or Marc-Andre Bergeron. Trades for players like Scott Gomez and Tomas Kaberle among others. Draft picks like Guillaume Latendresse, Terry Ryan and the whole 2008 class. Rejean Houle as GM. Mario Tremblay as head coach. Letting Saku Koivu go as a free agent. Firing some of these French Canadian head coaches that all of a sudden found glory elsewhere (Therrien, Julien, Vigneault). One marginal decision after another one could say.

But here's the point and that is something that Philippe Cantin and others of his ilk and thinking completely miss. They are hockey decisions. They are not language decisions. They are not political decisions. Hockey is a game. Nothing less nothing more. Sure we take pride when our team wins. It happens in many towns and countries around the world. We get to wave the banner. We get to strut and we get to crow that we are the best. We get to play Queen's anthem at the end of the season. But if we don't win; life goes on. Bills have to be paid. Children have to be taken care of and shown the right path. Jobs have to be done. Etc. Etc. Etc.

People ask me if I miss Montreal. There are things that I miss and I have written about some of them on here. One of the things I definitely don't miss is the language bullshit. It's neverending. It has nothing to do with being the head coach of the Canadiens. The Habs have French speakers on staff to help deal with the media. The fact that Randy Cunneyworth doesn't speak French may be a blessing. It may actually make his job easier not having to please the French press. All the fans want is a winner. It's always been that way. They could be "les gars de chez nous", they could be English Canadians, they could be Europeans, Americans or wherever else the players come from; all the fans want at the Bell Centre is team that will win the Cup so that we can have a parade down St-Catherine street.

Philippe Cantin can continue to be a navel-gazer, an individual suffering from myopia and a person so afraid to let his language prevail on its' own that he needs to politicize or aggrandize an event that should be left solely in the arena on La Gauchetiere and others around the NHL.

Quick Thoughts on Sports Results...

Okay it is around 630am as I start to hunt and peck on my keyboard this morning. I've actually been awake for the last hour or so as I awoke to the sound of some infomercial on TV. I fell asleep on the couch watching baseball on TBS or TNT. It sure is cold all of a sudden in SC. It's 46 degrees outside. If this continues I will have to turn on the heat. My hi-beams are on. LOL. I had the A/C running two days ago. Only difference will be that I will be paying a different energy supplier over a hundred dollars a month.

It was a sad day to be a Gamecock fan yesterday as they were outplayed and outcoached and deserved to lose. So much for that hype. Time for a change at quarterback. I actually watched most of the game late yesterday afternoon and it wasn't very well played at all. The old ball coach is making some questionable decisions. I'm thinking that we are seeing more of the Washington thinking than the Florida decision-making.

It was a great day to be a Clemson fan yesterday as they totally outplayed VT on the road. They should be ranked quite high this week and deservedly so. It will be hard to read the Greenville News with all the hype for Clemson for the rest of the football season. It can be compared to the Journal de Montreal and the Habs coverage. Complete with coverage of the bowel movements of the key players on the team.

You know what I hate about football is all the BS strutting after a play. Could be a catch, could be a run, could be an interception, could be a tackle. After the play ends all of a sudden a player or two will strut like a rooster. Sometimes they're strutting yet for no real good reason as far as I can see. They didn't have anything to do with the result of play succeeding or not. That's one thing I love about Marcus Lattimore. He completes an astonishing run and he just hands the ball to the referee. No dancing, no shrugging, no backflips. He just hands the ball to the referee. He acts as if he has been there before. Classy! As for the bantam roosters playing football, keep that crap for the farms.

In MLB I wanted the DBacks, Cards, Rays and Tigers to win. LOL. The less said the better. At the least in three of four they were only game ones and not season-enders so hope still reigns supreme.

It seems that the Habs won in Quebec City last night. Who cares as it was a meaningless exhibition game. I wonder why people pay top dollar for these games. They don't mean anything. The rosters are filled with players that won't make the team. Anyways that is sports these days. It's a revenue grab.

I think I need to get back to bed. At least it is warm there.

O'Byrne is traded...

Darn it they did it again. Why do my Habs always seem to trade some of these young guys that may become really solid players elsewhere. O'Byrne in his short stay with the Habs never was really given the chance to play his game without the fear of being either in the coach's doghouse or glued to the end of the bench after making a mistake or expanding his game day wardrobe to include lots of new suits to wear in the press box. I kind of liked the fact that this guy was a redwood and not afraid to muck it up at times. Why didn't we give him a decent chance? It seems that we like going after other teams' defencemen and often those that are a bit long in the tooth. Good luck Ryan! We hardly knew ye....

2nd Line Winger

So here I am keeping up with my Habs from about 900 miles south of Montreal and wondering why Jacques Martin is so worried about the lack of production from the 2nd line as well as who will end up being be the 3rd player on the Gionta-Gomez line. Okay this line hasn't exactly lit up the opponents' net at this point but the team is still at 5-2-1 which is pretty darn good. Good enough for 1st in the Northeast Division!

All in all Gionta is getting the opportunities as he is leading the team in shots on goal. They just haven't found the back of the net. Whereas Gomez has 3 points so far in 8 games. Okay they aren't exactly lights out but there is still another 70+ games to go. Relax. We're 5-2-1 after all.

The article I read that led to this blog came from the Montreal Gazette and in it they mention that Jacques Martin has tried Benoit Pouliot, Matthieu Darche, Travis Moen and last but not least Tom Pyatt on this line. Nothing against these guys; they bring their lunch buckets to the rink on a consistent basis. They're just not 2nd line players at this stage of their careers. That's okay. We're winning. No reason to panic. I know that the latter three don't have much of a history with Gionta-Gomez. Let us see how they gel. It is only 8 games after all and we are doing pretty well considering that we are still missing one of our most talented players in Andre Markov.

Here's an idea! Do we have someone on the roster that has a last name that starts with the letter G? We could have the GGG line! The triple G line! We could call that line the "Go Get Goals" line! Darn it! The only other G-Men on the team are Gill and Gorges. Let's get Monty Hall on the line. It is time to "let's make a deal". Okay I am being a wee bit sarcastic here. The point is we have 11 points out of 16. As Frankie said in the 80s.....Relax